New Saints Row Expansion And New-Gen Port Coming In January

As part of its big PAX panel Volition just announced a new Saints Row. It's called Saints Row: Gat out of Hell, and it will be out on January 27.

It's a standalone expansion pack for Saints Row IV in which you play as the ever... colourful Johnny Gat or the booksmart yet utterly badass Kinzie — or both in co-op. It's coming to current and last-gen consoles as well as PC and will run you $US19.95.

It's being developed by Volition and High Voltage Software, who you might remember from one of the Wii's more graphically impressive (for the time) games, The Conduit. The game itself wasn't very good though, so I'm a teensy bit worried. But I'll be damned (eternally) if I don't dig the concept behind this one:

Gat out of Hell's main villain? Satan. And Gat? Well, he's gonna shoot Satan in the face to rescue the president. Like you do.

According to the PlayStation Blog, Gat out of Hell will take place in the new city of New Hades, which includes areas like "a barren wasteland of an ancient war, a towering downtown for Hell's elite, and a crammed slums built for ultimate suffering."

Superpowers are also making a comeback, with a new one — angelic flight — taking center stage.

"With angelic wings our Saints will terrorize the ranks of Hell's armies from ankle biting imps to massive Arch-Demons. Super powers are making a return with supernatural twists from demonic summons to deadly holy auras. A new arsenal of wicked weapons can be found as well as The 7 Legendary Deadly Weapons — each the twisted embodiment of one of the 7 deadly sins. Fans may also find some much needed closure for past friends (and enemies)."

Spoiler warning: There's apparently a Disney-style musical number in which Satan sings to his daughter about how she should marry the president (aka the character you played) from Saints Row IV. Gat and Kinzie join in, too. Evan says the PAX crowd laughed at it a bunch, which means it maybe has a chance of joining Futurama in the almighty pantheon of funny Satan musicals. We can only hope.

In addition, Saints Row IV is making the superpowered leap onto current-gen consoles for $US30. That's coming out the same day as Gat out of Hell.

Here's a fact, the people who DO buy the HD upgrades are inadvertently saying to all these companies 'Hey you know what, we dont actually want progression, we want you to pump out your old shit with a higher resolution, that's all.' So we're getting stuff like SR4 'enhanced' and Sleeping Dogs 'enhanced'. How about some actual progression. Did SR4 NEED a hd port? Hell no. Did Sleeping Dogs? Hell no.

Love it? Have the right to comment on it? Awesome.

Love the game but pissed off at HD version of games being released instead of others while actual current gen games keep getting pushed back? That's my right too as a bloody consumer who's bought nearly all the consoles so far.

It really has become pathetic. The average consumer is like a pig at the trough, guzzling down anything that's offered to them. Unfortunately the tyranny of the majority means that discerning customers are just a tiny slice of their target demographic. We may be loud, but we aren't numerous; and it's a numbers game.

So many games. Metroid Prime just needs to happen. People get hung up on The Last of Us, GTAV and Tomb Raider without realising that things like Fable and Halo were brought back from beyond the grave. Super Mario All-Stars, Secret of Monkey Island, Another World, they're great.
I've been playing video games for like 25 years and I get so sick of them dying. I can't play Mega Man Legends, and if I could I'd have to put up with PS1 analog optional controls. That's just a crime against gaming.

It's $30 and they're still moving the series forward. I could understand being annoyed about it if it were full price, but ultimately they're saying 'if you don't want to rebuy Saints Row IV you can still have the new content and you can have it on your new console'.

As a fan I'm happy to hear they're making new content and very happy to hear that they're bringing the game to next-gen. I was worried the gap between generations would be considered too costly/risky.

It's 30 US. It won't be 30 Australian. Like TLOU you'll be looking around 60 dollars most likely due to our spectacular pricing!

DeepSilver were never going to leave the Saints last generation. They've always intended to take them forward, just in their own words, they weren't sure how. This frustration isn't merely at SR4, it's at the HD ports we're going to be getting and are getting. It's lazy, absolutely lazy and a cashgrab at best. Yes you can opt to not buy it of course, but why be content with stagnating last generation? You didn't buy a PS3 to just sit there and play PS2 games did you? Or a PS2 just to play PS1 games? That's all you're doing. It's MALIBU STACY! WITH A NEW HAT!

Every time the decision is made to slap a new coat of paint on an old game and re-release it as a "definitive edition", another original IP fails to be greenlit. Every time we prove to these companies that we'll pay for the same thing twice, sometimes even three times, we say with our dollars that we don't want new experiences.

Every time someone says "I use my Xbox to watch Netflix" Microsoft takes x amount of dollars from its game development or publishing division, the places that give you new, exciting games that aren't sequels, and gives it to executive producers who slap their name but none of their talent on the equivalent of a glorified webseries.

Without new games that will inevitably turn into franchises to in turn be sucked dry of all creative drive and innovation, there might not be any more "definitive editions" of the games you love to buy all over again in the future.

What we have here is an ageing population of games. There aren't enough "children" being born, just geriatrics being kept alive by machines for a over-attached, risk-averse audience.

That's just not true. Do you really think The Last of Us Remastered stopped anything else from being released? It wasn't rebuilt from scratch. It didn't require the resources of an entire full budget team. Wind Waker HD didn't stop Zelda dead in it's tracks. While it was being worked on they were working on at least three Zelda games (Hyrule Warriors, Link Between Worlds and a Wii U Zelda game).
These are easy, low risk projects that make back good money while giving fans what they want. They expand studios and stop people from getting laid off while bringing in the money to continue producing new games. It lets them take risks with other projects. If anything Last of Us Remastered probably caused more games to get greenlit. Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition definitely restored publisher faith in the series.
The entire system is based on the idea that the games are good enough that people want to play them again so I'm willing to take it on a case by case basis. In this case it's keeping Volition and Saints Row alive after the THQ collapse almost killed them both and it's still generating new content. That's win-win.
Banjo Kazooie on XBLA was fantastic. I had tried a few months earlier to play the original on my N64 and it was borderline unplayable. When they're just porting Mario 64 again it's not my cup of tea, but I'm not the center of the universe and there's clearly a lot of people who don't think it's a really basic, dated, proto-type for 3D platformers.

I'll admit I'm a little weary of those remasters being done while the original is still in print, but as it happens they've been doing it with games I missed out on the first time around so it's been nice. My main issue is that they've done it with some games that were released close enough to the PS4/XBOX One that they really should have been launch titles. I'm not a huge fan, but it just seems dumb that GTAV wasn't a launch title (although that said they pull that crap every time with the PC version).

Every time someone says "I use my Xbox to watch Netflix" Microsoft takes x amount of dollars from its game development or publishing division, the places that give you new, exciting games that aren't sequels, and gives it to executive producers who slap their name but none of their talent on the equivalent of a glorified webseries.

Even when they were doing their terrible reveals and presentations that were all about TV and set top box functionality Microsoft kept hammering the 'secure anything we can as an exclusive' game plan. Even after every rational person jumped ship from the XBOX One they still had exclusives coming out. The spotlight may have to be shared, and it's a dumb mistake to make after Sony crippled the PS3 launch by doing the same thing, but it's not an either or situation.

It's fine for the developers, and you're right, it does keep them afloat in the downtime to split their team and remaster an old game while they work on new ones.

It's the publishers, and the platform owners, that will sacrifice the new releases for rehashes. Look at the barren 2014 release schedule we have had. It's about the people in charge of the publishers and consoles going "what's coming out? Oh, 3 remasters in 3 months? Ok there's no need to push for a new IP or a new release in that time." "2 previously PC-only indie titles? Cool, that means we can delay The Order again." (not that that game looks like it'll be any good anyway)

It's more like, we as customers are proving we're happy to pay for endless sequels and remasters, and as such these publishers don't need to take expensive risks with new intellectual properties. Because we are proving that there's no need, and that nostalgia will pay the bills.

But things like The Last Of Us, like you said, would have been amazing, killer app level releases that would have doubled the amount of PS4s sold if they had made it a release title. Instead we have it re-released again less than a year after its release on PS3. Seems like the biggest wasted opportunity to me.

When did Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition need to restore faith in the series? The original version reviewed great and sold even better.

My issue simply is it looks like a cash grab by developers/publishers simply because of a lack of backwards compatibility. With the Last of Us on PS4 for example Sony made a massive big deal of porting this less then 1 year old game to PS4 and acted like they were doing the world a favor because a large portion of PS4 users came from 360 and didn't get TLoU on PS3. Wouldn't it have been nice if instead they could just get the PS3 version and play on their PS4? Same can be said of the X1 and 360 games.

I have less problem with a massive overhaul of OLD games like Halo 2 with the Master Chief Collection because hey its 10 years old (and is IMO the biggest value collection released on consoles since Orange Box) but re-releasing 0-3 year old games and slightly "remastering" them at full price is insulting.

The ONLY reason i am slightly less mad at Rockstar doing it with GTAV is that it looks like they are simply porting the PC version to next-gen consoles rather then "remastering" the console version and the fact that it is coming to PC.

At the risk of being chastised, I have been wanting to play SR4 for a while, and have been toying with the idea of getting it, but for last gen atm its still up at 79 dollars. I'm actually looking forward to a currrent gen SR4, and will likely buy it...

Steal it if you have to. I don't want to get into any specifics because even though it's not a plot heavy game it has a way of just dropping features in your lap I don't want to spoil, but it's got so much good stuff going on. It could stand to be longer but it's the ultimate mayhem driven sandbox game.
It's like if Mass Effect, BioShock, Vice City and Crackdown had a very, very, very stupid baby.

What is it with everyone bagging DLC and re-releasing in HD? You do realise that this is peoples' jobs right? The gaming industry is very precarious. Working in it more so. The ramp up to releasing a game, then MASSIVE downsizing afterwards (ie losing jobs). DLC keeps a steady income coming in while the company can work on new content. I'm all for it as it gives the developers more opportunity to survive and bring out more games in the long run.

Story time! I went to an all-girls’ school. My friends and I had that special bond of closeness that apparently comes with synced-up periods and measuring the length of each other’s winter leg hair.
This, obviously, led to a brief era of trying to catch one of the others unawares with the most impressive, most unexpected spank possible. We’re talking sneaking up behind each other in the hallway and laying one down that made the earth shake. If I couldn’t read your palm from the imprint, you weren’t doing a good enough job.